


any single part of this

by helloearthlings



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, Coming Out, Episode 74 Spoilers, Hurt/Comfort, Jack's Disappearance, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 09:44:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14329746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helloearthlings/pseuds/helloearthlings
Summary: His notebook has been all Jack has cared about for weeks now. Always more ideas, more notes, more connections he’s making to things that Sammy just can’t understand no matter how many times Jack tries to explain through warbled words about small towns and supernatural forces.Jack’s always loved ghost stories and horror movies and haunted houses, but that's not what this is. This is something huge and uncontrollable and unhealthy and it scares Sammy to death.It feels like Sammy’s losing Jack and it’s not even a fair fight. There’s no villain for Sammy to face except for whatever’s eating at Jack’s head.





	any single part of this

**Author's Note:**

> Every day there are more things for me to be sad about when it comes to Sammy Stevens. I was already planning on writing essentially this with minor tweaks, but after today's episode I couldn't not write this because ~ f i a n c e ~ and I'm, you know, dying over it and everything.
> 
> I'd say welcome to the angst-fest but, like me, I'm sure you've been here for awhile. Enjoy!

“Jack.”

Sammy’s been repeating his name for the past minute, waiting patiently for a response. Jack’s eyes are glazed over. He’s scribbling in his notebook but not really seeing it, not seeing anything. His hand his shaking. There are dark bags under his eyes.

Sammy finally crosses the room to snap a finger in front of Jack’s face. Jack blinks, once, twice, and then finally looks up at Sammy.

Looks up, yes, but Sammy’s rather certain that Jack isn’t really seeing him. His eyes have an otherworldly quality to them and no matter how many times Sammy snaps his fingers, they’re not going to clear up. They’ll remain cloudy and lifeless and see right through him.

“Please come to bed,” Sammy says calmly, restrainedly. He doesn’t want another fight, but it’s been at least twenty-four hours since he’s seen Jack so much as close his eyes for longer than a blink. “At least lay down even if you can’t sleep.”

“Working,” Jack mutters, hand twitching in the direction of his notebook. Sammy carefully extracts the pen from his iron grip, sets it on the table, and keeps Jack’s hand firmly entwined with his own.

Jack doesn’t fight it, but he also doesn’t respond.

“I understand you’re working.” Sammy is trying to understand, at the very least, exactly what has gotten into Jack’s head that has made him so distant, so different, so not present, emotionally or otherwise. “But you need sleep. Or – or dinner. Let’s have dinner.”

Jack hasn’t been eating lately – he keeps saying he forgets. Sammy hasn’t been eating lately because of the stress of Jack not eating.

“My notebook,” Jack starts, his hand twitching again, and Sammy squeezes it just hard enough to hurt.

“Enough with the goddamn notebook,” Sammy says tightly, willing himself not to get choked up.

His notebook has been all Jack has cared about for weeks now. Always more ideas, more notes, more connections he’s making to things that Sammy just can’t understand no matter how many times Jack tries to explain through warbled words about small towns and supernatural forces and it’s breaking Sammy’s heart.

Jack’s always loved ghost stories and horror movies and haunted houses, but that's not what this is. This is something huge and uncontrollable and unhealthy and it scares Sammy to death. 

It feels like Sammy’s losing Jack and it’s not even a fair fight. There’s no villain for Sammy to face except for whatever’s eating at Jack’s head.

At first, he thought this was just an special interest, a passion project, something that would ebb and flow and not take over Jack’s entire being. But the longer this has gone on, the responsibilities that Jack has shirked, the way he’s pushed Sammy away –

Sammy knows there has to be something wrong, something deeper than the surface, something that he can’t fix. He knows that because if that’s not the case, then he has no idea what he’s meant to do next.

“Don’t set up another therapist appointment for me,” Jack says tetchily, clearly still in the moment enough to know the expression on Sammy’s face.

“Please, Jack, I know you don’t think anything’s wrong – but I think you’re judgment’s skewed,” Sammy tries to explain as best he can, but even the insinuation earns him an empty look.

All of Jack’s looks lately are empty. It’s like he’s not even there. Like there’s something taking him away, piece by piece, more every day.

“I need to work,” Jack says emotionlessly, but Sammy grabs his notebook before Jack can resume his usual position of scribbling and not even noticing that Sammy’s there.

“Sammy, stop,” Jack says as Sammy rifles through the pages. He doesn’t understand anything in it. He catches a glimpse of a few names that he doesn’t recognize, some sketches, a map or two, a series of question marks.

And mention after mention of King Falls, some dinky town somewhere in the Colorado that Sammy had never heard of until Jack seemed to trade the importance of Sammy in his life for King Falls.

“Just looking,” Sammy snipes before throwing the notebook down, watching it slide across the table and fall off onto the carpeted floor. Jack looked at Sammy, and his eyebrows twitched in way that made it look like he was trying to glare.

He didn’t even have the presence to glare, though, and instead stood up and shuffled over to the discarded notebook.

He’s wearing one of Sammy’s old sweatshirts, rolled up sleeves, and if Sammy can just focus on that, maybe he can pretend this isn’t happening, that everything’s fine and normal and sane instead of falling apart.

The worst part is, he doesn’t even know why things are falling apart. It seems like one day they were happy and then everything rapidly spiraled downward.

“I think we should come out at work tomorrow,” Sammy says loudly, intentionally. Jack pauses, stares at him but doesn’t put the notebook down.

At least he has Jack’s attention.

“Why?” Jack asks with blank eyes, and Sammy could honestly start crying at any moment. “You’ve been scared of that your entire life. Why now?”

“Because – because we’re getting married,” Sammy chokes on the words, just slightly, as he stands up to cross the room and stand opposite Jack, put a hand on his shoulder, look him in the eye. He had to somehow convey that this was important, and Jack wasn’t in a place where anything could be conveyed to him properly. “And we said we were going to talk about the best way to tell people, but I keep trying to bring it up and you keep shutting me down. So let’s do it tomorrow. It’d give you a reason to show up if nothing else.”

His last comment comes out a little more abrasively than he meant it to, but Jack hadn’t been at work at all this week. Sammy was covering for him with Jason, saying that Jack was just sick and kind of out of it, very forgetful like that, but Jason was starting not to believe him.

Jack had never pulled anything like this before – ever. He was the picture of responsibility and professionalism, or at least he had been until last month.

Everything they’d worked for their entire lives – not just their jobs and money and nice cars and Internet fame – but each other, too, Jack didn’t seem to care.

He just cared about that fucking notebook and King Falls.

“Sammy…” Jack starts, and it almost sounds like there’s an emotion of some sort behind his voice, the likes of which Sammy feels like he hasn’t heard in weeks.

“We’re getting married,” Sammy repeats helplessly, because sometimes he forgets. Not just because they haven’t told anyone yet, but also because he feels like Jack’s forgetting it before his eyes.

It’s hard to believe that it was only two months ago that Jack asked – it feels like a lifetime or two. Two months ago, he remembered thinking that he’d never been so happy. The ground has shifted beneath Sammy’s feet since then, jolted him, made him feel fragile and breakable when he’d never felt like that before, at least not in regards to Jack.

Something changes in Jack’s eyes. He looks a little less empty – he looks more confused than anything. But it’s something, especially when Sammy hugs him and Jack responds, his hand on Sammy’s back, holding his t-shirt.

 “Sammy?” Jack asks, and for a second, it sounds like the old him, like he’d just woken up in the morning and was still sleep-addled and dazed and needs caffeine and God, Sammy misses him even when he’s standing right here in front of him.

“Hmm?” Sammy answers, not willing to let go of Jack quite yet and look back in his empty eyes. Right now, he can almost pretend that everything’s okay.

“We need to go to King Falls,” Jack says, not empty but stubborn and desperate instead, but Sammy can’t even appreciate the emotion behind the words. He’s so thoroughly drained by this, all of this, but especially King fucking Falls.

“Jack, what the hell is so important in that town?” Sammy asks, letting go of him and throwing himself back into the dining room chair he’d vacated, raising a challenging eyebrow upwards. Jack stood there, notebook loose in his hand, staring down at Sammy with _some_ kind of look on his face, so at least there was that.

“I don’t know, but I know that it has to do with me – and you,” Jack says, pushing, like he’s been doing all these weeks. Pleading Sammy to come with him, to leave their lives behind all for whatever King Falls is, and Sammy honestly doesn’t know what to do. “I know we need to be there. It’s important.”

“I –” Sammy breaks himself off with a helpless laugh even though nothing’s funny. “Jack, we have all we ever dreamed of here. Our jobs –”

“So you want to make misogynistic comments on the radio for the rest of your life while you pretend you’re straight?” Jack says flatly and Sammy glares but doesn’t let himself get riled up, not right now. Jack’s actually talking to him for a change, and Sammy can’t alienate him when he’s actually semi-willing to have a conversation.

“No, I want to come out of the closet and get married to my boyfriend and not have him leave me,” Sammy snaps, sounding harder and more brittle than he intended. Jack stares at him unreadably.

“I’m not leaving,” Jack says slowly, carefully, but all Sammy can do is shake his head.

“No,” Sammy whispers. “You’re not. Except in your head. In your head, you’re not here. I have no idea where you are, but it’s like you’re already gone.”

“Sammy – please,” Jack says. “I feel like something terrible is going to happen if we don’t go to King Falls.”

At least he said we. At least he’s still asking Sammy along. But it hurts, knowing that Jack cares more about this town than he does about Sammy and this life they have together.

“And do what?” Sammy asks, standing again, pacing. He paces when he’s anxious and upset, it’s what he does. If Jack were really Jack, his Jack, he would’ve crossed the room to Sammy and put his arms around his shoulders and made him feel anchored, but Jack wasn’t his Jack, not entirely, and so he just looked at Sammy.

“Figure this out,” Jack says, and there’s an edge to his voice that gives Sammy a little bit of a hope that his Jack is still in there somewhere, that they’re going to make this work somehow.

“Will you get help?” Sammy asks, pleads, barely hoping at this point.

The expression on Jack’s face looks like he’s trying desperately to show an emotion but his body isn’t letting him. He looks almost sick with it.

“If you come with me,” Jack says, and his voice almost quivers, “then I’ll do anything you want. I just need to get there. And I need you to come with me.”

“Okay,” Sammy says, even though it hurts. But he’d do anything for Jack, anything to get Jack back to him and regain some semblance of normality.

Even if it was in King Falls and not here – Sammy could live with that. Jack’s all he needs. He’s known that for a long time. He’d give up his job, his life, anything for Jack. Jack is the best thing about him.

“Let’s – I mean, we’ll have to get our stuff in order. We’ll have to buy out our contracts, put the house up for sale, figure out some way to make money when we get there – maybe they have a radio station…”

“Sammy, we need to go tomorrow,” Jack says without room for argument, in a voice so chilling that it almost jolts Sammy to the core.

“Okay,” Sammy says, walking unsteadily toward Jack, because okay is all he can say right now. “Okay.”

He needs Jack to hold him, tell him everything’s alright, but he doesn’t know if Jack can do that right now. He puts his head on Jack’s shoulder anyway, takes his hand, and tries not to cry.

Jack’s hand curls around Sammy’s neck. At least he’s responding. At least he’s here, somehow.

“Sammy?” Jack asks, voice thick. Sammy makes a noise in response. “Will you wear your ring? In King Falls?"

Sammy could laugh with relief as his grip on Jack tightens. There’s something essentially Jack about that being his question, his only concern, and it gives Sammy the hope that maybe going to King Falls could really fix this, somehow.

“Yes,” Sammy promises, letting go of Jack long enough to get the chain around his neck out from under his shirt and slide off the silver band that hung in the center. “I’ll – hell, I’ll introduce you to people as my fiancé, Jack. Wouldn’t that be – God, wouldn’t that be just –”

“You’re crying,” Jack blinks at him, concern lingering somewhere behind the clouds.

“I – so are you,” Sammy realizes halfway through defending himself that the light is glistening off of Jack’s cheeks. He reaches up to wipe a tear away.

“I hadn’t noticed,” Jack says, his voice suddenly small and scared, the clouds in his eyes draining into something more crystalline, more alert. “I hadn’t noticed – God, Sammy, I keep not noticing things. What’s wrong with me?”

It’s awful to see Jack’s face crumple like that, but it’s nothing compared to the relief Sammy feels that Jack can tell something is wrong now, that there’s something inside his head that needs help.

* * *

 

Jack wakes him in the middle of the night, shaking him almost violently, a crazed look in his eye visible even in the darkness of the room.

“Jack, what is it?” Sammy asks, heart thumping loudly. The look on Jack’s face scares the drowsy right out of him. Jack looks as if he’s being chased, hunted, torn down by something that Sammy just can’t see.

“I’m so scared,” Jack says, eyes unblinking and body quaking. “It’s so dark. It’s so dark…”

Sammy’s never seen Jack like this before. He quickly reaches across Jack to flick on the bedside lamp and Jack’s panicked breathing slows, though there’s still an unmistakable shakiness to it.

“It’s okay,” Sammy pulls Jack close to him, breathes him in, holds as tightly as he can. “It’s going to be okay, I promise.”

He’s not sure if Jack believes him or not.

* * *

 

It feels like no time has passed at all when the sunlight streaming in from the window wakes Sammy up.

They usually keep the blinds shut, but then again, Jack had been so scared of the dark last night that he’d probably opened them, so Sammy isn’t concerned.

What does concern him is when he reaches out for Jack to find that he is alone in the bed.

Frowning, Sammy makes himself sit up. The room is empty sans himself, but the other side of the bed is still rumpled. Jack can’t have been up for long. When things are normal, Jack usually sleeps later, but things aren’t normal right now.

He’s probably out with his notebook, Sammy thinks with trepidation as he forces himself out of bed and toward the door. However, when he gets out into the living room, there’s no Jack. No Jack in the kitchen or the hallway or anywhere.

“Jack?” Sammy eventually calls, a heavy weight settling in his chest that makes him feel as if he’s about to throw up. “Jack, where are you?”

It’s when he spots the duffle bag in the front hallway that he starts worrying.

Yes, they were planning on leaving – planning on going to King Falls. Today. Sammy knows that they had to leave today, that Jack was counting on leaving today. Still, it would’ve been more like Jack to wake Sammy up first. Then again, Jack’s behavior had been extremely erratic and incommunicative lately, so Sammy really has no clue what Jack could be thinking.

“Jack,” Sammy says, a bit more annoyed now, but there still isn’t a response. “What the hell, man?”

He does a couple of laps around the place, checks the backyard, and then he looks out his front window and realizes Jack’s Honda sitting in the driveway has its front door open.

Sammy knows then that something’s really wrong, but he quashes that feeling and doesn’t let in inside, not yet. Instead, he heads out the front door in his t-shirt and sweatpants, and hears the steady purr of the engine.

But there’s no one sitting in the driver’s seat. There’s no one in the car at all.

Sammy crosses the yard, gingerly touches the front door. The car can’t have been out here running for too long, and Jack obviously can’t be anywhere without it. Why would he just leave it sitting here? Maybe he’d just forgotten – and what, gone into the garage? To the neighbor’s? He just…wasn’t anywhere.

Sammy’s breathing gets shorter as he peers inside the car. No bags there, thankfully, just the one inside the house. It looks the same as ever, completely normal, and somehow that scares Sammy even more.

He thinks about turning the car off and taking the key but there’s a voice locked in the back of his head that says _don’t tamper with the crime scene. The police will want to see it._

The thought is enough to make Sammy retch. He quickly jumps away from the car, choosing instead to circle it, begging it to give him any clue as to where Jack might be.

He spots something poking out from under the car, next to one of the tires. He steps forward shakily, resisting the urge to throw up once again when he realizes what it is.

It’s Jack’s notebook. The stupid goddamn notebook that he hasn’t let out of his sight in weeks. It’s here and Jack isn’t.

_I feel like something terrible is going to happen if we don’t go to King Falls._

_We need to go tomorrow._

Slowly, Sammy walks back into the house, gets his cell phone, and dials the police.

He already knows that whatever this is, they won’t be able to help. There’s something here beyond the realm of what anyone can understand.

Jack didn’t disappear – something took him. Something that has everything to do with King Falls.

Before the police arrive, Sammy takes his engagement ring off his finger and slips it back on the chain around his neck, hides it under his t-shirt.

It feels wrong without Jack here.  

Everything feels wrong.


End file.
